What I Learned from the Travel Bloggers Show; Part 2 of 2

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My office is a disaster with books, brochures, business cards, notes and SWAG from attending the Travel Bloggers Show. I have a lot of work to do, not just to clean, but to make adventureswithben.com an even better travel blog.

Yesterday’s post about the Travel Blog Show spoke specifically to how I learned to navigate my first travel blog conference. Today’s post will speak specifically to the wonderful people I met, their blogs and what they taught me. If you’re interested in travel, consider visiting their sites too. And don’t forget, as always, you can connect with me too on Facebook!

The Speakers

I read Chris Elliott from Elliott.org every Sunday morning. He’s a travel consumer advocate and spoke about general tips to improve your blog. You can read them here. Chris reminds us about the basics. Have you forgotten about your basic blogging skills?

Known as The Practical Nomad, Edward Hasbrouck shared his insights into building relationships with marketing and P.R. folks. From his advice, I’ve already registered my information with some PR Directories Cision and Vocus and will be tightening up my advertise page in the near future. For some of the content he shared, you can visit his blog here. Do you proactively reach out to PR Folks…or wait for them to come to you? Hope it’s not the latter.

The Panel Session included Janice from Solo Traveler, who reminded me about the need to be an expert in your blog. She’s an expert solo traveler. What are you an expert in? Jeanine from J The Travel Authority spoke about her passion for “Hidden Treasures”. While she speaks about the opposite of what I do, her journalistic credentials are impressive. What are you doing to become more professional? Matt from Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site showed diversity in publishing his content. He guests blogs, offers guest blogs, has published e-books and is one of the foremost authorities on backpacking. How are you diversifying your content? What platforms are you using? One resource that was shared was HARO – Help a Reporter Out; a resource to offer your expertise to reporters and maybe be published. Finally, Beth from WanderLust and Lipstick talked about the importance of branding your site and how to do it? Leaves comments on site with your brand name, NOT your person name. What’s your brand? Do you even have one?

Moderated by Kim from GoGalavanting, Kim writes about Women and Travel. She’s also a founder of Travel Blog Exchange, the premier travel blog network. Are in in the network? You better be!

The Florida Bloggers

RoriTravel’s Florida – It shouldn’t take this long to meet a fellow Orlando blogger – but it did. Rori writes about what’s happening in Florida. Sweet and fun, she’s a big supporter of adventureswithben.com. Us locals need to support each other, so if there’s a local blogger in your neighborhood, why not reach out to them and see what happens?

Mom, this one’s for you. Cruise enthusiasts Doug of Cruise Radio and Chris of ChrisCruises are experts in their field. Doug with his radio program and Chris with his blog have well-established businesses, followers and are experts in their field. While cruising isn’t a common topic on this site, they’ve set a benchmark model for me to strive towards. What’s your benchmark? As an added bonus, Chris posted a nearly complete contact list of the travel bloggers he met you might want also want to connect with. Any of you readers who like to cruise – that’s you mom – will find them very valuable.

A business traveler like me, Carol from Smart Women Travelers has also set the benchmark for media reach. She’s been focused on television, radio, print and other blogs. She has quite an expansive reach. What’s your reach and how are you going to get further?

And Everyone Else

I am always impressed with anyone who makes the decision to sell their possessions and travel the world; living their dream. Kent and Caanan from Tandem World and Lisa and Cheryl from What Boundaries? did just that. Their passion, engaging stories and adventurous life makes for a great read and inspires anyone! What’s your dream and what are you going to do to achieve it?

Maren from Marenated is the Chief Marketing Officer for Go Galavanting. Smart, professional and fun Maren provided countless insights into navigating a blog conference, and bettering your work. A great person to have in your network. Do you have knowledgable experts in your network? If not, what are you going to do to find them?

*****

And there were a lot of other bloggers who I met too, including Lee from MySentimentExactLee, Lisa from Timeshare Insights, Brian from InsiderPerks, Jim from Craven Travel Group and Jennifer from Solo Travel Girl. Each shared new and different perspectives on the travel industry and travel blogging that help remind me of my place in the bigger travel blogging picture.

Did you attend the Travel Bloggers Show? What did you learn from whom? Share by commenting.

I’ll see you out there…! And I hope to see many of my new friends out there again too!

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